The World A.T. Ways

cAsTa Ways: An Interview with Travis Allen

Barbara Lindsey — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:14:12 +0000

For Travis Allen the gift of an iPhone for Christmas in 2009 quickly became much more than the increasingly common rite of passage coveted by many American tweens and teens. As you’ll hear in this interview, the iPhone profoundly changed how Travis experienced himself as a learner. At the time, Travis was just seventeen. We [...]

In which I share thoughts on thirdspace and teaching

Kevin Gaugler — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:58:08 +0000

On March 12th I presented a plenary session at the MAALLT-SEALLT 2010 joint conference, in which I shared my thoughts on the concept of thirdspace, the university and teaching as we know it. I first began thinking about thirdness in the context of Spain’s transition from a dictatorship to a democracy and the fiction it [...]

In which Apple-gate is debated and discussed

Kevin Gaugler — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:52:10 +0000

The other day Wesley Fryer had some wonderful comments on his blog about my thoughts on the iPad. I figured I would repost his ideas here along with my response. How do you feel about Apple’s gated model of distribution? Will it ultimately imped access to information and consequently teaching and learning? Wesley Fryer: I [...]

In which the second edition of the textbook might be an app

Kevin Gaugler — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:06:38 +0000

Before Apple’s big announcement today, I made a prediction that Apple’s device would disrupt the textbook industry and consequently education, particularly language education, as we know it. Apple has built its iPad on the same popular platform that runs both the iPod Touch and the iPhone and has added a bookstore to its iTunes application [...]

In which it’s the end of the Textbook as we know it

Kevin Gaugler — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:15:06 +0000

Yesterday on CNBC Terry McGraw of McGraw-Hill revealed that the company has been in detailed talks about bringing e-books to the soon-to-be launched Apple Tablet. The announcement from Steve Jobs today will certainly have a revolutionary affect on how we think about textbooks, particularly language textbooks. Imagine having a book in full color that has all media embedded [...]

In which I debrief after ACTFL 2009

Kevin Gaugler — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:28:57 +0000

At the ACTFL09 conference I gave a talk entitled “The Technology of Classroom 007: Mobile Computing and Language Instruction”. In it I described a classroom at Marist College, room 007, where I occasionally teach. The irony of its number lies in the fact that it is a basement room, underground with no windows. I therefore [...]

In which we traverse uncharted territories: hic sunt mobiles?

Barbara Lindsey — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:54:53 +0000

For many of us, these past few weeks marked the beginning of a new academic year. As students returned to campus they brought with them their mobile phones, those ever-present, always-on devices that have become the bane of many an instructor. A few of our faculty, not unlike elsewhere, have suggested an outright ban on [...]

cAsTa Ways: An Interview with Jon Pennington

Barbara Lindsey — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:17:50 +0000

Once again Twitter worked its networking magic and led us to Jon Pennington, who is a high school teacher of Spanish at Hunterdon Central High School in New Jersey as well as an adjunct professor of Spanish at the College of New Jersey. What caught our attention and led to this interview is Jon’s Spanish [...]

In which 10 Twitter applications might change your global mind and possibly your language classroom

Kevin Gaugler — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:46:12 +0000

In spite of all the talk about Twitter in connection with the Iranian elections and all things international as of late, I doubt that many of my university colleagues will be including Twitter on a syllabus this fall. I’ve talked before about the “Twitter Cycle” or the fact that, at first glance, Twitter appears trivial, and even, [...]

In which the next wave in language education might be Wave; 5 reasons for and 1 against

Kevin Gaugler — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:46:51 +0000

I just finished watching the 1 hour and 20 minute demo of Google’s new product, WAVE, to be released to the general public later this year. What might speak volumes about the product is that the video held my attention for that long. The Google team that developed this application set out to move organizational communication beyond [...]